Spatial Awareness in Bloom
by MegaBadBunny
Summary: Rose and the Doctor, the stuff of legend; a Doomsday fixit with a Hayley!Doctor twist.


There it is again, that little prickling feeling at the back of his skull. But it's only to be expected, with a great big time-space event like this. The air is thick with might-have-beens and maybe-was's and could-still-be's, charged and electric like the atmosphere before a storm. Bound to be a few stray timelines lingering here and there. If he didn't know any better, he would just ignore it.

("What's it like?" she'd asked once, just after they first met. "Your time sense."

"It's like proprioception," he'd answered, and laughed at the expression on her face afterward. It was a look that clearly said, _For someone so smart, you're awfully daft_. "The real sixth sense. It's like how you know where things are, even without looking. You keep a cup of water on your bedside table, and you can find it later even in the pitch dark. It's instinctual awareness, sensing where you are in relation to everything else."

"Like how I can find your hand without even looking?" she had teased, fingers edging up under the cuff of his leather jacket until he captured her in his palm.

He had grinned at her. "Exactly like that.")

Fortunately, he does know better.

"Actually," the Doctor says, pulling back from the lever (jerking back, like it burned him), "I think I'd like it better if you were over here."

Rose shrugs and switches sides without comment. The Doctor watches as she takes hold of the lever on the opposite side of the room, wonders if she, too, has the same curious sensation that something just _happened_. Like someone just switched a railroad track.

Now she frowns at him. "Everything all right?" she asks, concerned.

The proper answer, of course, is _No_ , but she doesn't need to know that.

"Are you ready?" the Doctor asks instead, and he's talking to himself as much as her.

* * *

The plan goes off without a hitch. Well, it's a little touch and go there for a few minutes. Well, he almost gets sucked into the Void.

Well. He also technically dies. So maybe there's just the littlest bit of a hitch.

The lever slips and so does he. Open and howling at the end of the room, the chasm waits for him, a blinding-white mouth ready to swallow him whole. The Doctor catches a glimpse of Rose as he falls, watches rather than hears her scream.

(He thinks he catches a glimpse of Pete, too, but that doesn't make any sense.)

Eyes closed, the Doctor braces himself for whatever the Void has in store, whether it's a vacuum that will tear him limb from limb or a suffocating nothingness that will crush the oxygen from his chest or an endless sea of maddening nothingness. Instead, he's rather surprised when his body slams against something very solid with a sickening _thud_.

Impact forces air out of his lungs and brilliant fireworks erupt behind his eyelids as his entire body hums with pain, but he would laugh if he could. He's alive. He's still here.

(If he had let go even a second sooner, he wouldn't be.)

"Doctor!" Rose's voice chokes out across the room.

Dimly, the Doctor registers the sound of feet running his way, boots slapping heavily over the floor. One hand stretches outward of its own accord and he's rewarded with an armful of Rose. Through the haze of pain, he manages to feel just a smidge of grim satisfaction. He might be dying, but Rose is alive and well.

"Please be okay," she mutters under her breath, her hands roaming over his body, pressing fingers to his wrist and his neck and his chest. The Doctor can only think she's checking for a double-pulse, one she won't find. "Please be okay, please, please, please—"

He wants to reassure her, but his vocal chords don't want to work, probably because his organs seem to have rearranged themselves in his abdomen. (Without his permission, he might add.) Blimey. He didn't think the G-forces could have accelerated so quickly over such a short distance, but he's been wrong before, and he'll likely be wrong again. Next time hopefully it won't rupture his spleens and shatter half of his vertebrae.

"Should I do CPR?" he hears Rose asking, her voice shaking with desperation. "I don't know CPR. I don't know what to do, Doctor, I'm sorry, oh god—"

Darkness crowds around the corners of his consciousness, bleeding through in direct opposition to the warmth that tingles in his fingers and toes. If his eyes were open, he knows, he would see golden light peering through his skin right now.

Pity. He rather liked this body, was pretty sure Rose liked it too.

He wonders what she'll think of the next one.

* * *

Rose doesn't know what to think.

The last of the regeneration energy fades away, bright gold-sparkling light dying down like it never happened. Like nothing changed. But the dust settles and the Doctor looks up with a different face than the one she had before.

Wait. The one _she…_?

A swimming sensation fills Rose's head and she sways on her knees. The room goes upside-down (and sideways, and inside-out, and all the other things it shouldn't be), and Rose has to remind herself to breathe, breathe, _just breathe, dammit_.

"What is it?" the Doctor asks, brow furrowing in concern. "Why are you looking at me like—"

The Doctor cuts herself off midsentence, her eyes going wide. She sits up so abruptly that Rose jumps back in surprise. Open-mouthed and frowning, the Doctor inspects her hands, turning them over and and back again before she traces them over her face, trailing over a sharper jawline and fuller lips and longer lashes and a head sporting long brown hair, on down further to discover a body no longer long and lean, but now flush with curves.

(In any other circumstance, Rose might describe the woman in front of her as _beautiful_.)

"Well now," the Doctor says, watching curiously as her fingers travel over a now-too-big suit jacket and land firmly on her bosom. Her voice is lighter, posher, and Rose flinches when she hears it. "That's a change."

The Doctor looks up at Rose, and Rose has no idea what her face is doing, but it must not look good, because now the Doctor is having a flinch of her own.

"Ah," she says. She glances back down at her hands anchored firmly on her breasts. "I probably shouldn't be doing this in public, should I?"

Her gaze meets Rose again. "Suppose I'm still a bit rude, then?" she asks with lips and eyebrow quirked.

Rose doesn't reply. Her tongue is thick and her mouth is dry and she doesn't trust anything that might come out of it right now. In a pathetic bid for time, she shakes her head and casts about frantically for a firm foothold on anything as her mind goes blank and a high-pitched ringing takes up residence where her thoughts used to be.

The Doctor's grin falters just a little bit. "Rose?"

She promptly pushes off the floor and runs away.

* * *

Some hours later, Rose sits on a swing in the TARDIS garden, losing herself in the quiet green. Exotic flowers gently wave in a manufactured breeze that ruffles leaves and caresses Rose's face, cooling cheeks grown red from crying. She pushes herself lazily back and forth and for a faint moment, it could almost feel like her cheeks are warm from the sun; she could almost imagine the pressure of her mum's hands on her back, pushing her on the Estate playground while Mickey kicks his feet and laughs in the swing next to her.

Pursing her lips, Rose bites down on the sobs that try to escape. Surely she has cried enough; surely all of her tears have dried up by now.

Rose leans her head against one of the ropes, bare feet dragging mindlessly over the grass below her. It's apple-grass, now, but it wasn't always. She wonders about that, clinging desperately to any thought that isn't related to Mickey or her mum. Instead she thinks about the TARDIS' peculiar whims and changing rooms, moods and features rearranging themselves like bits of the Hogwarts castle.

(Or like a certain Time Lord, but Rose doesn't think about that, either.)

Her mobile is in her hand before she even has a chance to think about it, her finger hovering over the keypad. But there's no one left in this universe to talk about any of this with, except the stranger down the hall.

She chides herself. She should seek the Doctor out. She knows that. The longer she hides, the more awkward things will be, the more strained. The more the Doctor will think…well, god only knows what he thinks.

( _What_ she _thinks_ , Rose reminds herself.)

"Well?"

Rose closes her eyes before the Doctor can step into view. The voice is still English, but softer, foreign and familiar all at once and it makes her a little queasy. She wishes she'd had a little more warning before the Doctor found her, a chance to brace herself. She opens her eyes to see the new (new) Doctor watching her with an expression she knows very well, even when it's on a different face.

Looks like Rose isn't the only one who's nervous.

"Well, what?" Rose asks, because she can't think of anything else to say.

"Well, how do I look?" the Doctor asks.

Rose's gaze travels over the Doctor. The tousled short hair and battered Chucks and pinstripes are gone, she notes with a pang, replaced by a plait that's just the right amount of messy and a pair of boots and a smart three-piece blue suit. A ridiculously well-fitted smart three-piece blue suit. This new Doctor has _hips_.

"Good," Rose says, swallowing. "You look good."

The Doctor nods. "I suspected as much."

Rose shoots her a watery smile, and thinks she can pinpoint the exact moment that the Doctor realizes just how hard she's been crying. Moreover, she can pluck out the exact moment the Doctor chooses to ignore it.

"Is it…" Rose starts to ask. Hesitates. "Is it weird?"

"How do you mean?"

"Being a different—being so different."

The Doctor's face is unreadable now. "Not so different, Rose."

"I know," Rose sighs. "It's just—"

"We've been through all of this before, and not that long ago."

"I know—"

"I'm still me," the Doctor says, a little sharply. "Still the Doctor."

"I _know_ ," Rose snaps back. "I'm not an idiot, all right? Just—"

Tears well up in her eyes again and she furiously pushes them away, angry at herself for showing weakness like this in front of the Doctor. She's not some trembling child who can't control her emotions, she's not some stupid ape.

Rose draws in a deep breath, avoiding the Doctor's gaze. "I lost my family today," she mumbles. "Mum and Mickey...they're the only family I had left. And I lost them. And in a way...in a way, I lost you too."

The Doctor is strangely silent. Rose buries her face in her hands.

"I loved you," she admits quietly.

Rose cringes at her own words; she hadn't expected to say them. But it's too late to take them back now. She pushes the heels of her palms into her eyes until she sees stars and she wills the Doctor to say something, anything.

"Quite right, too," the Doctor says after a moment, her voice quiet and—does she sound hurt?

Rose looks up to find the Doctor staring at the ground, her mouth set in a thin line. The Doctor slaps on a grin, and that's another facial expression Rose knows well.

"Only to be expected, I suppose," the Doctor says. "Twenty-first century attitudes, and all that. Still, I had hoped…"

She shakes herself. "But that hardly matters." She holds a hand out to Rose, wriggling her fingers when Rose doesn't take it right away. "Shall we?"

Rose just stares at her. "Shall we what?"

"Whatever you want," the Doctor says, as if it's obvious. "We've got a time-and-space-ship at our disposal, not to mention an entire universe to explore, now that we've saved it. Where and when would you like to go?"

For some reason, Rose's first impulse is to say _Home_ , until she remembers that the _Home_ in question is actually a mother and a friend she'll never see again. She draws in a shuddering breath, wraps her arms around herself to fight off the chill.

A shadow seems to cross over the Doctor's face, and she deposits both of her empty hands in her jacket-pockets. "Right," she says, and she seems disappointed, somehow. But she shakes it off. "Pilot's choice, it is. How about a trip to the leisure colonies of Barav Forn? Twin purple suns, perfect 21-degree weather, and crystal mountains that sing when the wind blows. What do you say?"

Rose wants to say that she could use a bath, and some more time alone in her room, and a good kip of a few hours (maybe days), but the Doctor looks so hopeful, so desperate for things to be all right, that Rose feels her willpower drain away.

She sighs, and forces herself to smile. "That sounds lovely. Just give me a mo to freshen up."

The Doctor beams at her. "Wonderful. Brilliant. You won't regret it!"

* * *

"I regret this," Rose says grumpily.

The Doctor plucks a stray reed out of the ground and twirls it between her fingers. "Could be worse," she replies.

"Could be better."

"Oh, I don't know about that. You, me, in a cave, hiding from the law. What could be better than that?"

"A bed," Rose says.

"Apart from that."

"A dry floor. A room without bugs."

"Most bugs are essential to their native ecosystem."

"Central heating, a galley stocked with food," Rose counts off. "A place without that awful shit smell—"

"No need for language. And awful smells are all a matter of opinion."

"A planet where it's not a crime to walk on two feet."

"Four legs good, illegal bipedalism bad, you know how it goes."

"A bit of shampoo," Rose says, her voice taking on a glum hue as she picks morosely at her hair.

The Doctor hums, pulling her own plait into view. She wrinkles her nose at the mangled nest her hair has become, riddled with bits of mud and leaves and something that looks suspiciously, if she thinks about it too much, like slime.

"Can't argue that one, actually," she sniffs.

Rose almost smiles, the ghost of a grin pulling gently on the corner of her mouth.

"What?"

"Nothing." Rose shrugs. "Just thinking...you're still obsessed with your hair."

"Yes, well, it's rather good hair again, isn't it? Why wouldn't I be?" the Doctor asks with a grin of her own.

"At least some things haven't changed."

Even if Rose's voice is warm, her words are colder than the damp cave around them, somehow. The Doctor's grin fades as quickly as it appeared.

Rose shakes herself. "I'm sorry," she says. "I didn't mean it like that."

The Doctor runs a hand through her hair and over her scalp, watches Rose flinch at the still-familiar gesture. "If you say so, but I'm not sure there are many other ways for it to be meant."

"It's just that—well—"

Rose looks away, suddenly shy. "Nothing. It's stupid. Just pretend I didn't say anything."

"Capital idea," the Doctor says. "Shall we sit in companionable silence, instead?"

Worrying her lip between her teeth, Rose watches her apprehensively, opens her mouth like she might say something else, changes her mind.

"Sure," she says quietly.

Something twists in the Doctor's chest and she's not sure why. Her hand feels awfully lonely without Rose's fingers between hers, though. Half-tempted to bridge the distance between them, to say through gestures what she can't quite push out through words, she starts to reach out toward Rose, but Rose just shoves her hands in her jacket-pockets and stares at the far wall.

The Doctor swallows her pride along with her hurt.

They sit in silence until morning.

* * *

It's stupid, really. Prolonged exposure to humans has made it easy to slip into a pretend-role sometimes, to act like she's one of them. It's only got worse over the years. But she's a Time Lady, and she should be above such small and petty things. She shouldn't need physical comfort, shouldn't require constant reassurance, shouldn't feel uncomfortable about this shift between them. Shouldn't even _notice_ it.

(Really shouldn't let it drive her mad. Which, it absolutely is not. Driving her mad, that is.

...it's driving her stark-raving bonkers.)

"Where to, next?" she asks, the second they're safe and sound and mostly slime-free back in the TARDIS, fingers flying over the console. "Paris is lovely at this time of year—this time of year being relative, of course, so we can choose any time of year, and any year for that matter, that we want. How about 1881? No reason, it just sounds like a nice number. Palindromes are sort of soothing like that, aren't they? Symmetry is delightful, isn't it?"

Rose doesn't reply, just stares at her like she's some kind of idiot. Her blathering sounds much more sophisticated and crisp in her polished new voice, but it's blathering, nonetheless.

"Or how about the pleasure domes of futureVenus? It's not what it sounds like," she amends quickly. She considers. "Or, well, rather, it's exactly what it sounds like, but that's not all it is, it's got quite a lot of things and not all of them are scandalous by twenty-first century standards. There are operas and restaurants and hot baths and things. And Barcelona!"

"Barcelona's on Venus?" Rose asks.

"FutureVenus, and no, I'm talking about Barcelona the planet. Or Barcelona the city, if you like. Or we could travel to Venus a thousand years ago and find a spot and name it Barcelona, then visit Barcelona on futureVenus after. Many, many Barcelona-related possibilities."

(Yep—definitely stark-raving bonkers.)

"So, what do you think?" the Doctor asks, resting her hand on a lever before she pulls it down, eagerly (but not _too_ eagerly) awaiting Rose's reply.

"I think…"

Rose sighs. "I think I'd like a bit of a rest, actually."

"A night-in, then? Wonderful. Brilliant. It's probably long overdue," the Doctor agrees, nodding. "Shall we to the library?"

"Actually," Rose says, fidgeting, "I was thinking I'd have a bath."

"Ah yes, you had mentioned something like that earlier. Very well, I'll see you in the library after."

"Actually," Rose says again, and this time she can't meet the Doctor's eyes. "I was thinking I'd go to my room. Sort of, you know. Be alone, for a little bit?"

The Doctor drums her fingers on the console lever while something that feels an awful lot like anxiety roils in her brain. "Of course," she says, chipper as ever. "We won't take off until you're ready. Take as much time as you need."

"Sure," Rose says, without even a hint of her usual smile. She takes off without another word.

The Doctor watches her leave and the _something_ in her chest twists just a little bit tighter.

"Shit," she says.

* * *

Fortunately for Rose, the lights don't go out until after she's done with the bath.

Unfortunately for Rose, when the lights go out, they _commit_.

Rose groans under her breath and buries her face in her pillow, willing the lights to be back on when she emerges. They're not, of course, and the view outside of the pillow is every bit as dark as it was inside.

(She remembers a handful of warm summer nights on the Estate, when a storm would knock out the power grid. She and Mickey and her mum would huddle in the living room of their stuffy flat, telling silly ghost stories by the on-again off-again flickering light of her mum's old rubbishy torches. Rose and Mickey would sneak sips of room-temperature beer when they thought Jackie wasn't looking. The storm would abate but the power wouldn't come back on for hours, and she and Mickey would lie on the living room floor, awake long after Jackie had gone to bed and the batteries in the torches had died, whispering together in the lightless night.

This darkness is far, far darker than that.)

She thinks of black holes, event horizons devouring light and planets and matter, and she shudders. Rose has never been particularly afraid of the dark, but this pitch black makes her uneasy. It's a darkness she can feel, something she can practically taste. Solid and thick and endless. She's half-convinced that if she reaches out, something will grab her back.

Temptation tugs at her, a pull that she knows will lead her back to the console room, to the pilot likely tinkering there. But Rose shakes her head at that. Everything is so strained and uncomfortable and she can't cope with the awkwardness or the panic or the guilt and besides, she should probably take advantage of the synthetic nighttime and sleep for a bit, shouldn't she? Cave-naps notwithstanding, goodness knows she hasn't a good rest since…

 _Since you stranded your family in another universe_ , her brain helpfully supplies. _Since you got the Doctor—_

Her heart pounds erratically and a sharp breath lodges in her throat.

Breathing in rough spurts, Rose rolls over and stands up off the bed before any more thoughts can complete themselves. She half-feels, half-senses her way from the bed to the door, fingers trailing over cotton and wood and rough coral walls as she edges out into the corridor beyond.

Strained circumstances or not, Rose needs the Doctor.

* * *

She snaps to attention at the sound of her name, sitting up so quickly that she bashes her skull almost hard enough to regenerate all over again.

"Doctor?" Rose asks again, concerned this time. "Are you all right? Did you hit something?"

"No," the Doctor lies. "Did you want something?"

Rose hesitates. "No."

Silence falls over the console room, every bit as opaque as the dark. More than, actually; the Doctor, with her night-vision goggles, can see quite well, even if everything is painted in curious shades of black and green. She watches as Rose looks around sightlessly, seeing with her hands and her feet and her memory. Rose takes a tentative step onto the grating, guiding herself along the rails.

Rubbing her head, the Doctor finds the spot where a bruise is starting to blossom, grumbles under her breath. "I'm not exactly sure when the lights will be back on, if that's what you've come to find out," she tells Rose. "Intradimensional quantum conversion is an inexact science and it's made the TARDIS a bit tetchy, I'm afraid. But I've probably got a torch in here somewhere, if you want it."

A green-hued Rose frowns in her general direction. "Intradimensional what-now?"

"Quantum conversion. The process of making a vessel Void-worthy. I haven't ever done anything quite like it before, but I got a good look at the Void ship back at Canary Wharf and I'm confident I can figure it out."

"Why are you trying to make a Void ship?" Rose asks, her tone tinged with suspicion.

"So we can get you to the other side of the Void."

Panic flashes across Rose's face. "You're getting rid of me?"

"What? No! Of course not," the Doctor says, pulling off her work gloves. "But you are leaving."

"You're getting rid of me," Rose says flatly.

"No, you're leaving," the Doctor repeats. She pulls herself up and out from beneath the control desk, brushes dust and grit off her trousers and waistcoat. "You want to be with your family. You miss them. I can't blame you. It's only natural."

Leaning back against the console, she deposits both of her hands in her trouser-pockets. "Though it probably would have been more convenient if you'd stayed put the first time round," she says thoughtfully. "Sort of why I sent you over there to begin with, not sure what the likelihood is of finding a crack big enough to slip through again—"

"I don't want to leave."

"—still, what's done is done, and it isn't as if I could have operated both of those levers by myself. Well, maybe I could have sonicked one of them. Probably I would have just sonicked one of them. That would have worked nicely. One fewer variable to take into account, one fewer person to worry about, that's always a good thing."

"Doctor," Rose says, louder. "I don't want to leave."

The Doctor fixes her with a hard look, even though she can't see it. "Don't you?"

"No," Rose insists, exasperated. "But I'm starting to think you want me to."

"You ran away," the Doctor says. Accuses. "You saw me, and you saw that I was different, and you ran away. Just like last time."

"Well, give me some credit, I was in a bit of shock," Rose protests. "This might all be old-hat for you, but it's still a big deal for me. I mean, you're an entirely new person. Again. Sort of takes some getting used to."

"And I couldn't help but notice your use of the past tense the other day."

"What do you mean?"

The Doctor worries the inside of her cheek. The admission had seemed like a good idea at the time, and her head reels with the rush from saying something so personal, but now that she's expected to follow up, she's not so sure.

(She's got that feeling again. Like she's pushing at a switch, watching a train track slowly shift; she could draw it back and things would snap back into place the way they've always been.

Or she could flip the switch and see what happens.)

"Loved me," she says, finally. "You said you loved me."

She draws in a deep breath and starts talk again before Rose has a chance to speak. "Don't get me wrong; I don't blame you," the Doctor says. "I was quite fit in the last incarnation. And I had a certain mysterious appeal in the body before. I'm quite aware of it. Couple that with years of close proximity and hearts-thumping adventure, it's no surprise that feelings of a certain nature should develop on one end or the other."

(Not that she would ever encourage such a thing in the first place. Not that she ever did, before, in those two other bodies, certainly not with the touches and glances and excuses for lingering hugs. And she certainly hasn't thought about anything even remotely resembling romance since she regenerated. Nope. Certainly not. Certainly, definitely, probably not.)

"But still," she continues. "Past tense. As in, you loved me once, and now you don't. Because you think I'm different."

Rose bites her lip. "I got you killed," she whispers.

The Doctor frowns. That is not the reply she expected. "Sorry?"

"You died," Rose blurts out. "You died because I let you switch places with me. I mean, I know it isn't exactly the same thing as dying, because you're still here, you're still the Doctor, you're still you. But I watched you die. I saw how badly you were hurt, and I couldn't do anything, I just froze, I was useless, and you _died_."

The Doctor blinks in surprise. "Yes," she says, slowly. "I did."

"And it was my fault."

"No."

"You died to save me. Twice now."

"And I would do it again," the Doctor said firmly.

Rose's responding laugh is half-hysterical. "And I miss you," she confesses, and even through the green fog of the night-vision goggles, the Doctor can tell by the darkening of Rose's cheeks that she's blushing. "And I miss my family, and I knew it would be hard with them gone but I didn't know just _how_ hard. And I miss who you were when we first met, I miss who you were a few days ago, I miss you right bloody now because all of these things have happened and it's like I'm not allowed to talk about any of it, like I'm not allowed to be sad. I'm not allowed to remember who you used to be."

Guilt sweeps through the Doctor and settles in the pit of her stomach. Scratching the back of her neck uncomfortably, she waits for Rose to finish.

"I just want things to be like they were," Rose says quietly. "I want those things with the new you, the person you are now. But it feels like...I mean, I guess that's the same as it's always been. For every inch you pull me closer, you push me two more inches away. It just feels different, now, that you've changed."

A few moments pass in the quiet dark as the Doctor absorbs everything. Rose's fingers flex against the railing, curling and uncurling, just the smallest betrayal of how very afraid she is. The Doctor wonders whether the darkness has emboldened her, or the trauma of the last few days, or if Rose just finally decided she'd had enough of the lines drawn between them.

In any case…it's both refreshing and terrifying.

"Well," the Doctor says, searching desperately for something, anything, to break the silence, to cut through the thick layer of meaning hovering in the air. "If you're worried about the new gender, I wouldn't waste your time. Gender is nothing but a social construct. Only really useful for self-labeling purposes."

She forces a laugh. "Humans!" she says, affecting cheerfulness for Rose's sake. "A Time Lady tweaks her appearance and nudges her voice and alters her mannerisms just the littlest tiny bit and you lot think she's an entirely new person. As if that's all that people are, as if people aren't more than the sum of their physical parts. It's all rather silly, isn't it?"

"I'm not talking about that," Rose says impatiently. "I mean, yeah, I guess it threw me a bit. I didn't know you could change like that. But what else is new? Do you like cats now? Do you hate the color yellow? Do you prefer the garden or the library? Coffee or tea? What's your favorite book, what's your favorite flower these days?"

"What has any of that got to do with anything?"

Rose shifts uncomfortably, her bare feet sticking and unsticking on the grating below. "If your body and your brain change so much...do your feelings ever change, too?"

It takes a few moments for the Doctor to fully realize just what Rose is really saying. And when she does, she feels very stupid. Stupid that she didn't figure all of this out sooner; relieved at what it all means.

Before speaking, she slips the goggles off her head, running a hand through her hair afterward. She drops the goggles to the grating, where they land with a clatter; she hears Rose jump in response. With the night-vision lenses gone, the darkness on the TARDIS is blacker than even the most starless night. The Doctor can't see any better than Rose can, superior Time Lady vision or no. But she supposes it's only fair. She wants to see Rose the same way Rose sees her.

"Cats are all right," she says.

She can't see Rose's face, but she imagines it looks a bit perplexed right now. "Huh?"

"Yellow is nice enough, but then, I'm rather fond of all the primary colors," the Doctor continues, slowly following the sound of Rose's voice, of her quiet breaths. "Even the ones that you've never seen. I should show you some, sometime."

"Okay," Rose's voice says, and it sounds hopeful, like it's catching on, and the Doctor grins.

"The garden and the library are an impossible choice," the Doctor says, reaching her hand out blindly, "but I rather think I'll prefer coffee this time round."

Her hand meets another in the darkness, and she's surprised to find that the fingers and palm that greet her are almost the same size as her own. She feels for the spaces between Rose's fingers and finds that hers still fit there perfectly.

"And..." she says, and swallows. It's easier to talk about all of these things in the dark, easier to hide, to pretend it isn't really happening, but still—the more she talks, the more she's going to give herself away.

She draws closer, until she can sense where the rest of Rose's body stands, feel her closeness by the space between them and the warmth of her exhale. It only takes a moment after that for her to find Rose's face; she keeps forgetting she's shorter now, that Rose's height is now much closer to hers, but her fingertips soon find Rose's chin. She cups Rose's jaw in her hand, runs her thumb over her cheek. She delights in how Rose's skin heats up at her touch.

Maybe her attitude isn't so twenty-first century, after all. That thought makes the Doctor's pulse hammer a little bit harder.

Seized by impulse, an urge she's tired of fighting (been tired of fighting for years, now), the Doctor tilts Rose's face up towards hers. Eyes closed against the dark, she finds Rose's mouth without even trying, pressing a kiss there. Rose hums in surprise, but she doesn't pull away; encouraged, the Doctor moves in closer, until she has filled all of the space between them, until she can feel Rose's chest expanding against hers.

"And you," she murmurs when she pulls back, and she's certain Rose can feel her double-heartsbeat pounding like mad. "Always."

Rose lets out a shaky breath. "I'm your favorite book?" she laughs weakly.

The Doctor smiles, then, a real, proper smile.

"Actually, I haven't got a clue about that," she admits. "But, erm. I could grab us some torches, maybe a lamp or two, and we could go to the library, and—well, I can't promise I'll be any good talking to you, but you can tell me anything you need, and I'll listen. And then maybe you can help me decide on my favorite book, after."

With her hand on Rose's cheek, she can feel the precise moment Rose's lips turn up in a smile of their own.

* * *

The next morning, the lights are back on, and the TARDIS most certainly has not exploded ("Which absolutely was not a possibility," the Doctor assures her just a little too quickly), but there are no more cracks between universes to be found.

Except one.

"It's not big enough for anyone to go through," the Doctor says, "so I can't bring your mum or Mickey back. But if we can find something powerful enough to boost the signal, then I can at least give you a chance to say goodbye."

She smiles ruefully. "I know it's not much, but it's a lot more than some of us get."

She shoots a nervous look at Rose. "What do you say?"

In response, Rose throws her arms around the Doctor in a bone-cracking hug.

* * *

The call ends, and hurt flares sharply in Rose's gut. She hears the Doctor prattling about something, but she's too busy thinking about her mother's tear-streaked smile and Mickey's soft goodbye and the baby brother she'll never meet to hear much of it.

Shaking herself, she pushes those thoughts away for now, focuses on the Doctor's voice instead. She's surprised to discover the Doctor talking about the possibility of future calls across the Void, something about tenth-dimensional transmissions and superstring theory and quantum alignment. Rose might not be able to see her family in person, the Doctor explains, or talk to them like she did today, but there's a chance they could send each other video messages at least, maybe even video chat, if they're able to locate a Ghybbian trans-receiver. (Whatever that is.)

Rose hides a grin. New body or not, the Doctor still clearly has a soft spot for Mickey and her dear old mum. Rose thinks she'll have to tease her about it, later.

It's still a little unusual, still just a bit of a surprise, to see the Doctor pop up from beneath the control desk, all curves and boots and blue waistcoat and long hair. But her eyes are the same warm brown, her hands still slim and beautiful as they dance over the controls. She still mutters a whole lot of technobabble-nonsense when she bounds around the desk, and when she catches a glimpse of Rose grinning at her, she still beams and preens. Which, as far as Rose is concerned, covers most of the important bases.

(Also important: she looks every bit as kissable as she did before. Rose thinks of the night before, of soft hands and lips in the dark. Yes. Very kissable.

Rose blushes.)

"Wonderful, brilliant!" the Doctor says, clapping her hands together. "So! Where do you want to—"

She stops. She stares. Her (kissable) mouth hangs open in shock.

Rose realizes the Doctor is glaring at something over her shoulder, turns around to see a ghostly figure veiled in white.

The Doctor splutters incoherently behind her.

" _What?_ "


End file.
